About AJ Francisco

AJ Francisco is a Filipino-American composer, music instructor, and violinist. She earned a Bachelor's in Music Composition at Old Dominion University (ODU) in 2022, having studied Music Composition under Adolphus Hailstork and Stephen Coxe as well as Orchestration under Adelaide Coles. She has also taken private violin lessons for several years with Andrew Dack and Paul Kim.

Francisco was a student at Salem High School's Visual and Performing Arts Academy, where she was tasked with rehearsing, conducting, and composing for a number of the academy orchestras. At ODU, Francisco won the 2021 ODU Young Artists Competition with her string orchestra composition "Matakot", and she received honors such as the Outstanding Music Graduate Award and Summa Cum Laude. She was a member of several ensembles, playing violin in the ODU Symphony Orchestra and ODU Collegium Musicum and singing alto in the ODU Madrigals Singers. She also led the ODU Composer's Club as Vice President.

She currently teaches private music lessons and is also the orchestra teacher for HeartStrings Institute for Music. Francisco holds membership in the organizations National Association for Music Education (NAfME), Virginia Music Educators Association (VMEA), the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society, and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).